in 2013, president obama will face a crisis with regard to iran. he has categorically ruled out containing an iran with nuclear weapons. so, either iran will capitulate completely to american demands or the united states will go to war with that country. since the first option is extremely unlikely and the second extremely unattractive, the obama administration needs to see if there is a path through which it can pressure iran to make a deal. in a thoughtful essay in the current issue of "foreign affairs" the columbia scholar jurvis points out that this kind of coercive diplomacy, at least from washington, has rarely worked. he points out in panama, 1989, iraq, 1990, serbia, 1998, afghanistan, 2001 and iraq, 2003, washington tried sanctions pressure and the threat of force to get leaders to change course, it didn't work. and washington had to make good on its threat to go to war. with north korea, coercive diplomacy also failed, but in this case, washington decided against military action choosing, instead, to contain the regime. making coercive di